Two former N.J. commissioners to lead Covenant House

The homeless kids sat across from two bright, educated and well-known people and taught the pair a few things they didn't know.

Like the locations of all-night restaurants that will let you crash for the night. How to score free food when the shift changes in an eatery. How to sleep in abandoned buildings without attracting unwanted attention. How to set a garbage fire to keep warm.

Jennifer Brown/The Star-LedgerKevin Ryan and Virginia Bauer both held top jobs in the Corzine administration and now they're leading Covenant House. They talk with client Carlos Ortiz in Newark on January 27.

"It's amazing how skilled they become, learning how to survive," says one of the pair -- Kevin Ryan, the former state children's services commissioner and, as of this week, the new international president of Covenant House.

"My own three kids would be lost out on the street," says Virginia Bauer. She's the former head of the lottery commission and state commerce and tourism office. Now she's a commissioner on the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Bauer became famous as an advocate for families who lost relatives in the 9/11 attacks. She is one: Her husband David was killed.

And as of this week, Bauer is the senior vice president of Covenant House, the organization with shelters for homeless young people in 23 American cities and six countries, that Ryan is about to lead.

They came to the organization's Newark facility to meet staff and kids. They got a tour of the place -- and some lessons on street survival. The local staff brought some residents in to provide a sense of what the place was like.

Like Siedha Sessoms, 19. She talked about sleeping in train stations and coffee shops.

"Smelling the donuts is almost as good as eating them when you're cold and hungry," says Sessoms.

"If you're there at just the right time, they'll give you stuff because they're only going to throw it away anyway," she says.

Mandella Jones, also 19, described how to break into abandoned buildings to find a place to sleep. And how to jump out of windows when the cops come, so you want to stay on the first floor.

Carlos Ortiz says he spent a lot of time living under highway overpasses.

"When it's cold, garbage can make a good fire," says Ortiz, 21, who says he got off drugs and found a job because of Covenant House.

They all are residents of Covenant House, an organization founded in New York City in 1968 by the late Rev. Bruce Ritter, a Trenton native. Twenty years later, the priest quit in the midst of a sex scandal. He was never charged with wrongdoing -- and denied any -- but the organization, almost completely reliant on donations, took a crippling hit.

Two nuns followed as heads of the charity. Ryan, who worked as a lawyer for Covenant House in the 1990s, will become its first lay leader. Although it has close ties to the Catholic church, it is not formally connected.

"It follows the church's social justice philosophy," says Ryan who, like Bauer, is a practicing Catholic. He lives in Fair Haven with his wife and six children.

"The Catholic background is one of the reasons I wanted to be part of this effort," says Bauer. Recently remarried, she lives in Red Bank.

Covenant House, which has helped some 70,000 young people find shelter and jobs, is facing another crisis because of the economic downturn.

"The financial sector was a big supporter of its work and now that money just isn't there anymore," says Ryan.

Bauer, 51, who worked in state government with Ryan, will be in charge of fundraising for the organization, headquartered in New York.

"We will have to be more creative," says Bauer, who conceded this isn't the best time for trying to raise money. About 90 percent of Covenant House's budget comes from donations; the rest is from government and other grants.

"We believe we can really turn this around."

Ryan, 41, called his return to Covenant House "coming home."

"Our goal is not merely to stabilize, but to position it for growth in the future," says Ryan, who left state government a year ago to work for the Amelior Foundation, run by financier turned philanthropist Ray Chambers, now a special United Nations envoy for fighting malaria.

The visit by Ryan and Bauer did not come on a good day. Jill Rottman, the Newark center's executive director, said the charity had to lay off 18 staff members because of budget cuts.

"That's been very upsetting," says Siedha Sessoms. "This place is like family to us -- and now members of our family are gone."